Electronic forms are commonly rendered for display through a Web browser or application software. A typical form is a document that includes fields of information content. Sometimes, a user fills in blank fields of a form with information. In other cases, a user only views the information content of a form.
Different types of devices have screens that differ in terms of width and resolution. The content of a given form may be displayed on a smartphone with small screen, a tablet computer with a medium-size screen, or a desktop computer with a large screen. In addition, for some types of devices, the orientation of the device can change from time to time as a user rotates the device for viewing, which can change how the content of the form is rendered for display.
In common approaches to rendering of content as a form for display, the content of the form is arranged in a fixed number of columns. This allows the author to control the logical organization of presentation of the form content. For devices with large screens, however, rendering of content as a form in a fixed number of columns can leave too much empty, unused space that could otherwise be filled with content. On the other hand, for devices with small screens, rendering of content as a form in a fixed number of columns can result in a crowded display or result in some of the information content being pushed off screen (accessible by scrolling).
Some Web browsers adapt how Web content (such as HTML documents) is rendered depending on device characteristics. Typically, a primary flow of text content is wrapped from one side of the display to another, and images are scaled. These approaches do not work well for content rendered as a form. In particular, when content to be rendered as a form is hierarchically organized as groups and sub-groups, simply “wrapping” content from one side of the display to another can disrupt the logical flow of the content and result in inefficient use of available screen space.